Are you spending way too much time on admin or boring repetitive tasks? Is it stopping you from going after the bigger dreams/to-do items that would move the needle in your biz? If you said yes to any of those, then today’s episode is for you.
Today’s guest, Luvyna Mantle, known as the "Tech Cowgirl," brings together over a decade of experience in both cattle ranching and marketing. With a BA in Business Studies from the University of Maryland and an extensive international agriculture business internship in Australia, she navigates the intersection of traditional agriculture with modern digital marketing, bridging the gap between the two worlds for ease and profitability.
She shares about her journey from mom/army wife to multifaceted entrepreneur while raising her kids and her favorite tools for online entrepreneurs to set their business up for long term scaling. If that peaks your interest, stick around as we dive in.
Ksenia:
Hey everyone, welcome back to the Doodles to Dollars podcast. Today's episode is going to be so, so good talking all about systems. Today's guest is Labina Mantle. She is known as the tech cowgirl bringing together over a decade of experience in both cattle ranching and marketing with a BA in business studies from the University of Maryland and an extensive international agricultural business internship in Australia. She navigates the intersection of traditional agriculture with modern digital marketing, bridging the gap between the two worlds for ease and profitability. I know her as the go-to person for systems, especially for Go High Level, so I'm really excited to dive into this episode where we can talk all about her journey, growing her business, and getting to where she is in her career, but also some really good, tangible tips for any of you that are looking to create systems or maybe don't even know where to begin. So, if any of that piques your interest, let's dive in!
Ksenia: Hi, so welcome. I'm so excited to have you on the show to get started. Tell us who you are, what you do, all that good stuff.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so I'm Levina. I own Mantle & Co and we are a CRM integration workflow expert. So basically I take all those different platforms that you're using online to run your business. So like your website, your funnels, automations and workflows, your email marketing and like course creation and all that stuff. And I put it on one platform for you.
Ksenia: Awesome, man. That must be like so nice and useful and clean to just have it all in one spot. So I'm excited for our conversation. And yeah, to kind of dive into it, I really want to know about your journey, like take us through everything from start to finish, like school careers, all that stuff.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so I grew up on a small ranch here in Kansas with my parents. And both my parents have had their own businesses basically my entire life. So my dad has started an agriculture fencing business and ran cattle when I was, it was like right around the time my brother was born and he's five years younger. So for a hot minute. And then my mom did… She had a catering business forever. So I had that example in my life going in. I never thought that I'd ever be an entrepreneur myself. But when my husband was in the army, and we are overseas in Germany, and we had our oldest kid, and there were no jobs available. And I love being a stay-at-home mom, but I was so bored. Babies are so boring. So that's kind of what kicked it off and what started it. I actually started going back to school full time. He was constantly gone anyway, so it was just me and the kid. So I was doing like 18 credit hours every eight weeks and finished my business degree with the University of Maryland. And then we moved back to Kansas and I was working for the Air Force as a civilian. And when I went on maternity leave with our youngest, I realized how much I wasn't home and wasn't present in our toddler's life. And my husband was transitioning out of the Army at the same time. We did the math when he got home. And in three years of our oldest son's life, he'd only been home for four months. So that was a huge wake-up call for us. This is not working. I was working 60 hours a week. He, well, hadn't been around because of the Army. And something needed to change, right? So I'd already kind of been working as a virtual assistant before then on the side, just to bring in extra money. And I like dove full in on maternity leave. I was like, we're doing this. And I was lucky enough to be able to replace my income from the Air Force while I was on maternity leave. And yeah, I just went from there. That's been two years full-time. Well, two years in March full-time. And then I was doing it part time for a hot minute before then. So yeah, that's kind of how I got started. And I quickly went from a virtual assistant to managing teams online virtually, and then switched over to just doing the business side of things because I love the back end of things and organizing people's processes and making life easy and all that jazz.
Ksenia: Awesome. Wow. Okay, so we have so much to dive into. I also know that with your family business, like that you also work on that as well, along with your systems. Do you mind sharing about that? Because I'm curious how both of those play together.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so my family actually owns a ranch. My parents own the ranch side of things. And then me and some of my siblings and my parents all co-own a bulk beef operation. So we actually raise the cows right there on the family ranch. And we're all very involved, very hands-on. During the warm months, we're literally there pretty much every weekend, it feels like, doing something with the cows. And then on the flip side, me and my brother and some of my sisters and stuff, we are in charge of marketing and getting it out to people. shipping it. We ship beef across the United States and stuff like that. So it's been really, really fun. I'm very passionate about agriculture. I grew up in there. I'm a farm girl through and through. Being able to combine my two passions, the ag side of things, but also helping small producers get online and sell their products to not only the local community, but also people around the US because there is a need and people do want healthier alternatives.
Ksenia: Yeah. Yeah. Whenever I hear you talk about it, I'm like, I wish I lived in the States. Okay, so good. Okay, awesome. Wow. I'm like, where do we even dive in? So I'm curious, throughout your whole journey, like you've definitely been in so many different stages of like growing up and then also going into being like transitioning from being a stay-at-home mom to not and kind of having to focus on that. I totally get the being bored aspect. you on that one. Yeah I'm really curious like from every step has there been a really key thing that you're like okay this has led me to where I am now or this has been such a useful learning tool of like okay I don't want to do this maybe I can't be a stay-at-home mom because I get bored.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah I think every single step was like one step closer to putting me in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: When
Luvyna Mantle: my parents and us and my parents decided to go full in with this online beef business. This has been their lifelong dream. So they have wanted to do this for 20, 30 some years. But it's scary. That's a big scary thing. And I've wanted to do it for a while too. But I never wanted to step on anybody's toes. And we were at the point where we don't have thousands and thousands of acres to run cows to the capacity that we need to be able to do this. So when my parents later like bringing this up to me, we were talking about it. I had this conversation with my dad that like, I feel like every single step over the last five years has put me and taught me something that I needed for the next thing that was happening. And it's just so cool to like, watch the journey and watch how things happen. And yeah, it's, it's nerve wracking. And it's really it's cool to look back on at the time. It's it's terrifying. There's still moments that I'm just Yeah, it's scary being a business owner, but I've learned so much in the last several years. And I've grown so much as a person in the last several years. I've never felt more me and confident in who I am as a person and what I'm doing and my purpose on the earth. So it's been cool.
Ksenia: That's awesome. I totally get that too. I'm having the same transition very slowly. I'm like, oh, hey, yeah, I actually know what I'm doing. Everything's good. I'm really excited to dive in. So I know that there's the family ranch side of things. I think it's so awesome that you're a part of making your parents' dream come true. I don't know, that just makes me so happy because I also have a close relationship with my parents, and one of my dreams is I want to be super loaded so I can help them do what they want to do. They sacrificed a bunch for me and my sister, so just hearing that your involvement with family is like, yes! I love this. I'm curious, as you were in Germany, with that shift, what was that like? Because I can imagine going from Kansas to Germany probably was a huge shift, also a culture shock maybe. I'm curious what that situation was like, and then also, do you have a specific moment where you're like, okay, no, I need to do something. I need to start school, I need to start something.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so it was a big culture shock, which actually surprised Both me and my husband, because he's been deployed to Asia a couple of times. I did a study abroad in Australia and traveled to Asia while he was there. So it's not like we've never left the Midwest before. But I don't know if it was just the finality of, yes, we're here for the next several years and this is our life now. It was quite a big culture shock for us, especially at the beginning. And we didn't live on post. We actually lived in a little German community about 20, 30 minutes from base. So that was actually really, really cool. Like we are in an ag community too. So I got to see kind of the difference in like how the U.S. does agriculture based there. But yeah, going from I'd always worked a full time job, like very busy. We were two and a half hours from my family and four hours from him where we were stationed previously. So we didn't see our family constantly, but we probably saw my family about once a month and we saw his every couple of months. So, yeah, going from that to being overseas and like not having any plans to come back to the States or people to see us yet. And then we actually found out we were expecting two weeks into moving to Germany. So that was another big transition for us. So everything just happened at once. And before I had the baby, I was super involved in the community. I did tons of volunteering and getting to know the people. and our troop, like wives and soldiers and stuff like that. My husband always jokes that like, we're Mr. Mom and Dad when it came to the army guys, because all the younger privates and stuff, we're both older kids. So like, we just adopt them and feed them and like, get on to them and you know, all that stuff. But then after we had our baby is actually when COVID happened. So we were in complete and total lockdown. And that's kind of, we were bored out of our schools. It was also the most we'd ever seen each other like at one time as a couple. So that was kind of really fun too. We played, we learned that we are like, we knew we were competitive, but we can't play card games together because we are way too competitive with each other. Like, But it was also kind of nice. It was nice to slow down and figure out what we wanted to do with our lives and not having, I mean, at that point, the army controlled us and they controlled all of our plans, but I was bored. And that was a big thing. Like my husband, kind of the wake up call for me and like, okay, you need to go back to school. figure out something, do something with your life. My husband would joke that every time he came home from training, he always had to like double check that he walked into the right door because the house was different. Like I would repay or rearrange or do something like that. So that was kind of my, I mean, I'm just that type of person and I love doing it anyways, but it was getting a little ridiculous. I painted our house way too many times in the two years we were there than is even acceptable. So I think that was a good staging point to learn, okay, I love being a stay-at-home mom and I love raising my kids, but I can do something else and still be a good mom and still be here for my kids. And I think when I went on maternity leave and realized how much time I wasn't seeing my kids, looking back at that, I was like, okay, I did 18 credit hours every eight weeks with a newborn. I can have my own business. and stay home with the boys. Like that is, it's possible. It's realistic. It's not this crazy idea and dream that's not even in boundaries. So I think it was really good having that experience and knowing that I can handle having a lot of pressure, but also being home with kids and that type of stuff and finding balance.
Ksenia: I so love that, though, like every time your husband came in, I had to double check. That's hilarious because I'm I'm definitely like that person too. So I was just laughing, just like, mm-hmm, yep. I know exactly what you mean. Now that we've kind of talked about Germany, I'm curious, where exactly in Germany was it?
Luvyna Mantle: So we were stationed in Vilsack, which is Rostock Tower Barracks. So we were 30 minutes from the Czech border, and we were like an hour from Nuremberg. So super small community. It's actually one of the biggest NATO bases, which is really, really cool because, like my husband's side of things, he got to train with so many different countries and do so many cool army things. I was just over here like, hanging out and making friends, traveling, like being a mom. So not as cool things, but it was so much fun living in Germany. We miss it. Like we we want to go back at some point.
Ksenia: Hmm. Yeah, I've I've definitely like I've stopped by in Germany on the way home to visit my family in Russia. And yeah, I loved it, but that was also like 15 years ago, so I'm basing my memory off of that. But yeah, there's something magical about Europe. Maybe it's just for me because I have roots on that side of things, but it's just so nice to visit and you're like, wow, this is a different way of life. How long were you there overall? Because I know you said years.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so I was there for two years and then my husband was supposed to be getting medically retired. And me and the toddler and our two dogs flew back to the States by ourselves in August of 2020, thinking that he would be home by Christmas. Then COVID locked everything else, like everything down, literally within weeks of me leaving. And we started the process and it took him another year and a half to get home. So he came home for three weeks about a year after July of the next year. So it'd been almost a year since we'd saw him. And that's when we'd like planned. And luckily we were able to get pregnant with the second one. Cause I was like, at that point, I was like, I hate the army. Screw them. Like they're not running my life any longer. And luckily we were able to get pregnant those couple of weeks that he was home, just like everything lined up perfectly. And then he got home mid February of 2022. And our youngest son was born in March, like mid March of 2022. So he was there for three and a half years, and I was there for two years.
Ksenia: Wow. And that's just because of like the lockdowns and how everything happened. And just like, I'm sure it slowed down everything too, in terms of processing as well.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, he just had kept having a restart. And like one of the biggest problems was the hospital where they were like the army hospital was four and a half hours from us. And that's where they were running a lot of his med board stuff, because that's where he had his surgeries at and everything. But it was across state lines. And when Germany locked down, we were in a different state. So he couldn't even get there to do any of his medical stuff. So that was a huge part of it was just things kept locking down and it wasn't even, I mean, there's probably things the army could have done, but we were in a different country. Like a lot of it was out of their hands. He had a lot of, a lot of his command was trying really hard to get him home and do something, but there was just nothing they could do about it.
Ksenia: Wow. That's crazy. I'm like, thinking of like what happened when it was like locked down here and I'm like, I just sat at home and worked. But I'm like, wow, to spend that much time. Okay, and then now that you've moved back in that time was when you were, had you already like completed your degree online? Or are you still doing it? What was happening for you as you were waiting within that year?
Luvyna Mantle: So I was, the week before finals is when I flew back with my son. I don't know what I was thinking, but luckily I was able to pass everything. We graduated and I, we ended up actually getting stuck living with my parents for about four months because it was when the housing craze was absolutely insane. And yeah, we just couldn't find, like by the time I'd find a house or a realtor would find one and send it to me and we'd send it to my husband in Germany and he'd look at it, it'd already be pending. So it took us about four months to find a house. And yeah, I was living with my parents with a toddler and two dogs. And luckily, we were finally able to buy a house. It was only about 20 minutes from the Air Force Base where I was working. So that was super nice. With single momming at the time, we found an amazing in-home babysitter or daycare center. She knew some friends we went to church with. So like she was a godsend during that time because she was amazing. So everything kind of worked out. Like I had a really good job on base. We had really good daycare. My parents were 30 minutes away. So like between all of us, we made it work.
Ksenia: Once you came back, did you go fully into the job on base? And then that was just what you did with the degree or the schooling that you got?
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah. So I actually kind of just had to take, like I applied and applied and applied, but because I'd been in Germany without a job for two years, I could not get anything. So I, my job on base when I started was a rec aid. So I made $12 an hour. Like I wasn't making shit, but I worked really, really hard and I got moved into, I mean, I made my, I made my way up into director in the two years that I was there before I left. So I was overseeing a couple of different activities at the time, like when I left and went on maternity leave. But yeah, I didn't stay that low for very long. I was like, this is not affordable. We got to do something.
Ksenia: Move up. We got to change. Okay so with that and also there's so many in my brain is just like tying all these little things together. Okay so do you find a lot of overlap with the amount of time that you and your family have spent like with the army and all of that and maybe the structure of that with how you do the structure in the back end in your business now? Like do you see any overlap in that? Do you feel like that kind of like guided you into systems because it is a very like systemized place? Probably the most out of any I've heard of, but maybe I could be wrong.
Luvyna Mantle: No, it's actually funny you ask that because I never used to see a correlation between the two. And then I had somebody ask me lessons that I've learned from the Army a few months back, and they quoted me in American Express magazine. I was so excited. But one of the things I pointed out was adaptability. I'm the oldest of four kids. I've had my life planned out probably since I was old enough to start thinking about my life. meeting my husband and being a military spouse was not anywhere in the cards. And there is no such thing as planning in the army. It's just especially not with my husband's job. You don't plan. So I do think the army really helps me. Learning that adaptability and being able to look at things different has really helped me because one thing I've noticed when I'm going through systems with other people, especially doing audits, they're like, Well, these are all the steps I do, but I can't figure out how to make it happen in there. And there is a lot of structure around processes and systems. But I've noticed that I'm able to look at things differently, and I'm able to find little kind of loopholes. to make things work. So I don't know if that's from the Army. I don't know if it's from my experience. But I never used to be adaptable before being in the Army. I had my plan. And if my plan did not work, it worked. It was like, what is happening? So now I'm a little bit more flexible and kind of go with the flow. And I still freak out when things don't work like I had planned. But I'm able to snap out of it pretty quick and figure out a plan B. So
Ksenia: Hmm. Yeah, I can see that's such a huge thing, especially like you mentioned, like you can't plan. One day they'll be like, hey, you're moving here or you're moving somewhere else. So now I'm really curious what the other things that you learned from the army and like from your family's time there, especially like other than the adaptability. Do you find that there's things that you learned during that time, whether that was like with your job or just being a single mom and like raising your kids within that type of structure that you notice in your day to day?
Luvyna Mantle: I learned that I am so much stronger than I ever thought I could be. And I'm sure I'm not alone. I know there's a lot of people that go through worse situations than I've ever been, but like working 60 hours a week with a two and three year old while pregnant and like my first kid, easiest pregnancy of my life. Like I was hiking mountains in Germany at 34 weeks. Like it was not a hard pregnancy. Second kid, no. Like, We should have known from the pregnancy that he was going to be a handful or like he's been a handful from literally day one. It was miserable. I had several medical things going on. We basically lived with my parents on weekends because I was so sick that I couldn't take care of myself and our toddler. While my husband was deployed, a lot of like big world events were happening at the same time that when you have somebody that's in the military, it affects you very differently than if you don't have any relation. So just like the combination of all those things and there's been several other points over the seven years that we were in the army that have like made me think about how strong I am. But those probably four to six months of just everything happening and then him transitioning out and like the Ukraine and Russian war broke out. all those things led up. And honestly, I like never thought that I could be as strong as I am and handle as much stress as I did at the time. And I didn't break down. I kept going and we survived. And here we are. And now anything to something comes up. I'm like, Well, I handled that. So I think I can handle pretty much anything. So yeah, the army makes you strong. You either learn to live with it and you you just get a tougher skin or you don't last very long. I don't think but There's a lot of good things and there's a lot of bad things about the Army and just life in general. But the Army was one of the best things that ever happened to my husband, even with all the bad things that happened with it. So it's one of those things you got to just take it as a blessing and move on with life.
Ksenia: yeah that's so true especially like i'm sure we could look at any job or any industry or even any place like there's always going to be really awesome things about it and there's going to be things that are terrible that you probably don't even want to think about and i can imagine that that is amplified even more when you're talking about the army because there's just another level of commitment and like seriousness that comes with that compared to like just working someone in labor or like just me like for example a designer like there's way less risk that I go through than compared to someone in the army so I can only imagine and I love… I mean, not in the moment, but I love looking back and being like, wow, I really did that. Like, I survived. And I'm sure all of us have different moments, whether it is something as, like, intense as having relationships and people that you love that are part of the army or, like, dealing with wars. I'm sure that, like, I have no idea what that feels like. and I can only imagine how stressful that can be but I'm sure we all have like moments where we really learn who we are so I love that that is something that you mentioned because I'm sure there's things that you learn like oh process or things like that but I think just the word that comes to mind is resilience and I can totally see the connection between learning that And then now having that as you grow your business, because you kind of have two, right? Like you have your family ranch and what you do there and also your systems. Yeah, like I can personally, I'm like, okay, yeah, you need to be strong. You need to be resilient, building your business because it's just you. Yeah, I love that connection.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah. And I mean, working for the Air Force, like everything, there's so many SOPs and like standards for everything, especially once you get into positions like where I was, where you're handling large amounts of money that is government money that is so closely watched. So I think that's really helped on like the system sides of things. And like talking about SOPs, like write down your processes because you never know when you're going to need somebody else to be able to do it because things come up, especially like if you have a team and you have VAs or an OBM. Like you want to have your SOP, you're going to save so much time by having SOPs in place. So just having that structure and like knowing the importance of writing down processes definitely came from the Air Force because before, like why? I never would have thought about it before.
Ksenia: I have like a love-hate, sitting on the fence relationship with SLPs because for me, it's just me and it has been just me. So then it's like, oh, but what if my process changes? Or what if they don't do it properly? Or why don't I just do it? So one, I'm curious, in your system side of things, is it just you? Like, do you have anyone else on your team who supports you, whether that's subcontractors or people that are actually part of your team?
Luvyna Mantle: So I officially hired my first VA last year. So I was so excited about that, and I primarily hired her to handle my social media because I hate social media with a passion, but I understand the importance of it. So I had kind of really been slacking on my social media before I hired her. She was amazing. And we basically built it from the ground up. And she's been like amazing at doing that. She does occasionally help me with the tech stuff. She is a tech VA. So she does understand like go high level and the platform that I'm using. And she's helped me with quite a bit of things on my side of things. I haven't had her do any client work yet, just because I'm a little OCD. But we just launched a membership and she's added into everything. And I think she's probably going to have a bigger hand in it than she's quite prepared for. But she's super willing and she's amazing and she just goes with the flow. So it'll be fine. But yeah, I'm the one that preaches having SOPs and I have no SOPs in place. So, but I do have like templates for a lot of the automations that I do regularly and things like that. So kind of
Ksenia: I totally get that. I'm the same. I'm like, yeah, I love systems. I mean, that's why I went into design. I grew up as an art kid, so I easily could have gone into painting, which I probably wouldn't have because I suck, but I'm like very abstract. I'm like, no one's going to buy this. But I went into design because of the structure in the system. So I think that's something that we probably have in common of like the love of organization. I joke that I probably should have started an organization business because I'm like the friend that helps people move. Like my friends know me as that. And I'm like, for better or worse, this is who I am now. So I'm curious now that we've talked about it, because I know there's the official SOPs, and then there's also templates inside of things. For anyone that's listening, what is an SOP? What does that even look like? Because I know that sometimes when I mention things around design, I'm like, oh, yeah, that's only a word that I know. That's not what other people know.
Luvyna Mantle: So I'm sure there's people that have it way more structured than I do. When I was working as an OBM and a VA, And even some of my stuff, I use a program called Tango. And what it does is it like screen mirrors your computer as you're doing something. I've used it like for walking people through how to build out something in high level or like I was using HubSpot as an OVM. So But it screen captures each of the little steps that you do. So that is really, really nice because I'm a visual person. So if you are a visual person, then it has examples of what you're supposed to do, but it also writes it down in Word for someone that's better at reading and that type of thing. For the Air Force, obviously things were way, way more structured. We had to have everything written down to the very tiniest little detail. And those were all in forms. There was standard SOPs that you had to use, especially sending memos and things like that.
SPEAKER_00: Everything had to be very specific.
Luvyna Mantle: On my side of things, I don't think there's any reason for someone to be that specific. If you start running an agency account or something, or you have a huge team, then maybe. But for someone that's a solo entrepreneur or only has one or two team members, it's just helpful. It's helpful for training because you come in and you have to spend less time training someone new. It's helpful for if someone goes on maternity leave. I feel like a lot of people in this space are moms. And one of the big reasons we've gotten into this is for our kids. So things like that happen. If you need someone to take over, I don't know, like your calendar management or your email management for a week while you have to be out on an emergency, like just having that kind of written down in somewhat form so they know what steps to do and like who to contact, who not, it can be very helpful.
Ksenia: I know exactly what you're talking about with Tango where it's like there's a screenshot and then there's the instructions of what happened. Is there a difference in how effective or proper it is to if you just recorded a video with like no written like is does that count as an SOP because I do a lot of those.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah so technically those could be. The biggest thing I found with videos is I'm a speed listener reader so I can get through something way faster if it's written down like in Tango because I can like kind of skim and get through it. I find a lot of times with videos that I'm just sitting there and kind of like okay what's next like just wasting a lot of time sitting but there's also like people are different learners so if that's the type of person that you're teaching and you're trying to there's been times where i do both video and the tango together and i keep them together so depending on how you learn and how you that's you can use you can pick so no i think that's totally acceptable basically my entire membership how-tos are all built out with loom videos that i've made so
Ksenia: good to know now okay so this thought just popped into my mind i'm like hmm i could just take those videos and put them into like a transcription service and it'll give me all of that And that kind of brought my mind to AI. I know that's like a super hot topic right now. I'm curious from your system's perspective, do you find that fitting in in terms of tech or even just in how your processes are going? Or is it like, man, I don't really need it.
Luvyna Mantle: I'm actually building out chatbots that use AI to sell people or clients. So basically, have you heard of mini chat? Yeah. Okay, so it's very similar, like the process is very similar to ManiChat. So basically, someone will say a certain word, and these chat box, it'll like trigger the chat box, and then they'll respond. And they'll ask the client questions and send them sales videos, and they have specific messaging and stuff. almost close the sale over chat versus like one on one discovery calls. So yeah, that's all through AI. I think it's gonna be so cool. It gets you a lot more touch points than you can do individually. So because technically, they could be talking to multiple different people on multiple different platforms. We're linking it with Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. So yeah, I definitely use AI. I think it's going to be huge, especially on the back end of stuff. I mean, you can ask chat dbt for like snippets of code now and different tips like that. So I use it quite regularly in my business. And I think it's just going to continue growing.
Ksenia: Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean, I've definitely tried the code generator. And I mean, hasn't really reached my level of coding yet. I'm like, I don't know if this is good, but I know it's always improving. But actually a conversation I had in one of the previous episodes was how AI is really useful for workflow. I'm curious if you found this too, obviously with your system side of things, like it helps you with the workflow and the doing. Do you find that it helps you also with strategy or is that something that you're still like, no, I kind of use it as like a tool and a workhorse versus you come up with a plan for me.
Luvyna Mantle: It's definitely a mixture. I've had a lot of coaches that are building out courses use it for that specific reason. They're like, this is my idea. This is what I want to happen in this course. Can you help me build it out and give me some tips? There's a lot of people using it that way. I haven't personally used it to build out workflows yet just because I haven't needed to. There hasn't been a workflow yet that I haven't just been able to mind map out using pen and paper. But I'm sure I will because I'm going to go test it now because I didn't even know it was a thing.
Ksenia: Yeah because I like at least from the design perspective it's so interesting because I think there's people are on so many different levels of the spectrum of like where they want to be with AI. Like, I love AI, I use it every day. There's a designer who I follow that that's like her thing. She's like the AI person and she built a course and everything. And then there's people that are just like, nope, never. This is not it. And I've kind of fluctuated between it. But now, at least from my side, Adobe, which is the industry standard for design, like, drilled into your brain in high school and university. And now I haven't found a replacement for it. But they've started adding AI into their tools, which that's kind of where I see the workflow coming in for me. I think I just need to dabble a bit more into it, to be honest.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, that's kind of where I'm at. The things I know how to do, I use regularly, but I just haven't taken the time to try out new things, really.
Ksenia: With everything that we've talked about, I'm curious to kind of pivot towards the system side of things, especially for solopreneurs. From your experience, is there anything that you've noticed that has really made a huge difference for people that are going from no systems at all to maybe testing the waters with them a little bit.
Luvyna Mantle: I think the biggest thing for people is basic reminder sequences. So like a point reminders and nurturing workflows for cancellations and no shows and things like that. I just did the perfect case study on myself a couple of weeks ago. Google servers were down. So none of my reminder emails were going out. And it was the same week that I booked like back to back coffee chats. And I had a 50% show rate versus my normal 90 to 100% show rate because I didn't have reminder emails. And that's just something super, super simple and easy. I think pretty much anybody could build out reminder emails. But that's going to make a huge difference. And especially nurturing those ones that have canceled and rescheduled. Life happens. Things happen. It's going to happen. But those are like warm leads, they've already taken the time to schedule with you. So like nurturing them back up, getting them back rescheduled and back on a call with you is way easier and worth your time than like continually trying to find cold leads. So I think that's probably like the number one thing I always recommend is going out and building some sort of reminder sequence for yourself. Even if it's just like you making a process sheet, and setting manual tasks and reminders and emails, like you're going to notice a difference.
Ksenia: Mm hmm. I'm curious, how do you deal with no shows or is there a way that you deal with them? Like definitely reminders. But have you noticed anything else that has made a difference or is it really just like life happens? People need to get reminded all the time.
Luvyna Mantle: Honestly, I never I don't think I've had any no shows before that week. It's always been people, because I send out reminders when the appointment is booked, and 24 hours before, an hour before, and 15 minutes. And every single reminder has the link for the Zoom call in it, and a reschedule or cancellation link. I've never had people just no-show. It's always been rescheduled. I did have one guy no-show once, and it was because his daughter's dad died. And he was at the vet with her, and it was a whole thing. But that is completely understandable. Like he immediately rescheduled and we talked, I think a couple of days later. So just, I've never had that happen. They reschedule or they cancel the appointment and it automatically puts them in a workflow and nurture them. And nine times out of 10, they reschedule with me.
Ksenia: And then in that workflow for nurturing, is it just reminding them to like book again? I'm curious what that actual workflow looks like, if you mind sharing. If not, I totally understand.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so the first appointment is like life happens. Please reschedule or whatever. And then I try to space it out because I hate constant email reminder. If I subscribe to an email list and you send me an email every single day for the next month, you're getting unsubscribed. I'm sorry. I can't stand it. So I try not to do that to other people. Also, so I try to put at least a couple of days between the next ones. And a lot of times it'll be like my normal nurturing emails, just like, this is who I am. This is what I do. This is how I can help you. This is what you're struggling with that type of thing. And I'll trickle in like reminder emails to reschedule, but I try to space those out multiple days. And between even sometimes like a week before I'm like, this is my final reminder, either reschedule or talk to you later, I guess.
Ksenia: Okay, cool. Okay. Yeah. Reminders. I'm like thinking like those are even for me. I'm like, I could probably improve those. I have, I have the 24 hour and the one hour and that's been really great, but it's interesting, especially because I've also had in the past, like two months, back-to-back coffee chats. So I know what that's like, where it's like, Oh, I was supposed to have a chat and now it's moved or like, Oh, I was supposed to have a chat. And then they don't show up. And I kind of feel like might put a damper on it. Cause then it's time wasted, but reminders are so useful.
Luvyna Mantle: Especially putting the call link and that reminder because I hopped on a call last week and I had to scroll back three weeks to find the appointment confirmation because it was one of the few that I didn't put immediately in my calendar. But if someone's already running late and then they have to scroll through all the emails and try to remember what your email that it came through, the chances of them not showing up are just even higher. You want to make the path the least resistance to get on a call with them because we all know that we're better at selling in person than online.
Ksenia: That's such a good point. I feel like the path of least resistance is really good advice for everything, you know? Especially with business, it's like, oh, you have really busy, difficult systems? Let's think about the path of least resistance and build your system. That's really interesting. I know that you've mentioned a bit, like we've talked before, but you mostly work with Go High Level and the system that's in there. I'm curious why you chose that one or if there's key things for people to look out for when they're considering actually like setting up a system and going into that step, whether they do it alone or they hire someone like you.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so I've actually worked in a lot of different platforms. I originally started in Upsado. I did not find Upsado very like user friendly. Yeah, especially when it comes to like the workflows and stuff. So then I like briefly switched over to HoneyBook, did not like HoneyBook. I don't even think I lasted a week in HoneyBook. And so I went back to Dosado. I've tried out Kajabi, like I've played around in Kajabi, which I love hate relationship with Kajabi. I love their membership area. Once again, though, I love workflows and just the workflows and Kajabi are not up to par. And I I've had a lot of clients come over from Kajabi because as you have more programs and you grow, it just gets ridiculously expensive. So that's like one of the main reasons that I don't use Kajabi. I tried out Kadra for a while. I don't hate it or love it. It's there. The reason I love Go High Level is because I originally learned in HubSpot. And HubSpot is probably like my second favorite CRM. It has everything, it can do everything very similar to go high level. The biggest difference is it's just way too big for solo entrepreneurs. Like it is for multimillion dollar companies that have their own marketing team and their own sales team and are just running big organizations. Um, so that is when I found go high level and I like instantly fell in love with it because it was so similar to the capabilities that HubSpot has just not as overwhelming. There's still a learning curve. And I try to tell that to every single person that asked me about it. There's a learning curve. You're going to have to break out time to sit down and learn the platform. But I think going in with Go High Level sets you up to scale. So if you are planning on building a business and planning on growing, I'm just one of those people… My dad always preached to us, if you're going to do something, do it right the first time or don't do it. So that's That's my philosophy when it comes to Go High Level versus other ones is a lot of the other platforms are really good for when you're first starting out, but they're not set up to scale and they can't do everything. Go High Level can do pretty much everything. And by the time you start comparing all the other systems that you're piecing together, trying to save money, you're probably spending as much or more as a membership to Go High Level. So that's my soapbox.
Ksenia: Yeah, I tried Dubsado and I even paid someone to set it up for me and to be honest I never ended up using it because I just, even from a design standpoint, it just didn't make sense to me how they structured their software. So I was just like, why would I use this? I think I fell into that trap because it is such a well-known name and a lot of designers use it so I'm like, oh I should probably use this but then I'm like, I don't like it. And I lasted a day on HoneyBook, so the first thing I checked was like, can I import my fonts? No. Bye. So yeah, I'm not on a GoHigh level, but I've just found one that really works for me, which is Moxie. And it's not as intense as emails and marketing and adding that side of things in. It's just pretty basic, but I love it. Thankfully, it has workflows, so I need to build some of those out. I know that, Elise, from the Go High Level perspective, there's so many different ways. Like, I think we talked about how you can, like, customize it and I know there's people and companies that have, like, their own version. When you're building things out, do you kind of stick to, like, I guess a template of what you have or is it custom for every single person in terms of, okay, this is what we need it to be?
Luvyna Mantle: Yes and no. So I have templates that I've already kind of built And I use this as examples for the incoming. So every single person's build out is completely custom. Like your website, your funnels, your membership area is completely custom. The structure, I use a lot of the same structure just because it flows and it's how people read and catches your eye and sells them on things. But Yeah, the actual build out is completely… Design-wise is completely custom. All your workflows are going to be custom to your business, what you're needing, and what your struggles are. I mean, you have your reminder emails. Those are pretty standard. But all your other workflows, we… I literally did an audit for a girl 2 weeks ago, and we had a pros and cons list. And this is what she's struggling with. And that's what we built workflows off of. And that's generally how I go in with clients. We hop on an onboarding call, and we just brain dump all your struggles and frustrations about your business and your systems and all the random things that you can think of. And those are golden because a lot of times, that's where we pick up the little things that maybe are not at the top of your mind. But it's a super simple solution that just pulls one sticker out of your foot, you know? So yeah, everything's custom.
Ksenia: With starting to build systems, like for people that are just starting out, I'm curious, like, are there, other than the reminder emails, are there, like, key things for them to consider? And also, like, how much time is realistic to take on, okay, if I was gonna do this myself, how do I look at my system side of things?
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, if you're just doing yours, the first thing I'll say is, don't get overwhelmed. It's very easy to get overwhelmed, especially when you first log in to go high level. There's just so many different things. And it's like, it's fun to start playing around, but then you like mess things up. So if you go in and immediately integrate all your like your zoom and your emails and stuff like that, like that is my first thing to do go in integrate all those because then you can get your calendar set up. And that's going to be like one of your most important things because you can start sending out those to cover discovery call links. Secondly is figuring out your domain and getting your domain integrated. What's kind of cool is that I put all my clients into Cloudflare just for extra security, but GoHighLevel just updated everything so you don't have to do it manually. You can like put in your domain name and it just automatically does it for you, which is really cool for someone that's not, I mean, you start getting into like A and C and name record, like, You can mess things up real fast. I'm familiar. That scares a lot of people. And from there, all your funnels and your website, it's all drag and drop. So a lot of these white label versions, because Go high-level sells itself as a SAS white label version. I really, really like FG Funnels. And if I have a client coming in that has no high-level account, they just know they want to swap over, I put them into FG Funnels just because they have pre-built templates for funnels for websites. I think some automations. But on top of that, they have so much training and support resources. It is incredible. So if you are somebody that is a DIYer and want to know how to set your stuff up yourself, you can. You just have to be patient and not get overwhelmed. Time-wise, I mean, I can build a simple funnel in three hours. But I, like, I know a girl that was trying to set up an agency account just for herself and go high level. And she spent like 40 hours trying to do it. So I think it just depends on your, your skill level. Just, yeah. Don't get overwhelmed. Don't try to do too much. Just get something out there, like something built in out there and then tweak it as you get more familiar with the platform.
Ksenia: I'm curious because obviously I come from the custom website side of things and I mostly build in WordPress. Have you come across any limits with the websites that are inside GoHighLevel and FGFunnels because it's inside of a system versus being completely open?
Luvyna Mantle: I haven't, and I've never worked in WordPress, so I don't know WordPress's capabilities. I use coding and special coding and stuff in high level all the time. I'm currently working with a coach that's doing SEO services and stuff. And they actually did all the back-end research and discovered that SEO on a website to go high level is almost as good as WordPress. So I know with a lot of these other like the SEO just isn't good at all. They did the research to figure out that it is. It's very comparable. So I have no idea really what that means. It wasn't my research. I just they were telling me about it, but I trust them. I've worked enough with them and know them well enough that and they know what they're doing. They're both like 10, 20 year veterans and the online space. So I think they know what they're talking about.
Ksenia: yeah that is such a good point because the reason i like wordpress is because you can do whatever you need to do with it and the seo setting side of things is like you can make it what you need it to be and that's it's awesome that you mentioned that and that they did that research because there are a lot of platforms where you can't even touch it it's like if they kind of deal with it on the back end but then you don't know what they're doing so that's good to know i'm like okay keep that in mind
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, I saw I originally built out the beef business and Shopify because at the time high level didn't have an e commerce option. I hate Shopify his website builder, like hate it. High levels way easier for drag and drop. So I think most people could do it.
Ksenia: Okay, so I have definitely at least from my perspective, Shopify has always been like the e commerce platform. So Yeah, now I'm like, Hmm, go ahead level does e commerce to do you find that it like can handle big capacities? Like if there was a site that had like 1000s of products, or is it just for the smaller side of things?
Luvyna Mantle: So I will say they just launched it. I we have probably 10 ish products on ours, and it's fine. The main reason I was super excited to switch over is because I like Shopify and high level have an integration, I just it wasn't as good as it could have been. And I knew we were losing leads, like there was leads in Shopify that were not getting moved over to high level. And I was having to spend a lot of manual time doing that. So I was really excited when they launched it, because then once again, instead of paying for two platforms, everything was through high level. And I know high level, like I know how to run stuff through there. I know how to grab lead info, I know how to get those people to buy. So I haven't used it on a large scale, but on a small scale, and especially like if it comes to digital products and stuff, I think you'd be fine.
Ksenia: Oh, that's so interesting. Definitely going to check it out. I know we've talked about this before, but I'm like, okay, I'll actually go look. Okay, cool. So as we wrap things up, one question that I'm really curious about is, which we kind of talked about at the start, but if you were to look back at your whole history of your business and the key moments, whether they're good or bad or pivots or whatever, when you look at all of that, is there a time or moment that you would go back to And what would you say to yourself in that moment?
Luvyna Mantle: Do your market research, girl. I know people preach on this all the time. Yeah, just do market research, especially about your services and what you're offering. Because don't be like me and wait a year after getting feedback from your clients about what they want to do something about it. Yeah, you'll just be amazed at what people actually need from you. And it's going to make you feel way clearer about your business, your offer, your services, and just life overall. So yeah, do your market research. I know it's scary. But there's so many Facebook groups out here. Like, I posted in a handful was like, Hey, I'm getting ready to launch this program. Can I get some feedback on your thoughts? And like, So many people were like, Oh, yeah, we'll hop on a call with you like no big deal. So ask the questions people want to help like, they want to be able to use your services. If they have a need, like they want people to be able to fill that need. So don't be afraid to ask.
Ksenia: Okay, so with that in mind, like what, what did your market research reveal to you?
Luvyna Mantle: So the big one was, all my business systems, like setups and stuff has all been project based. And over the last two years, I keep having clients come back to me asking questions on how to do updates and how to find specific things and stuff like that. And I would just record a quick limb video and send it to them. And then I went through my limb video to clear it out and realized how many hours over the last year I have spent sending people limb videos. It was bad. So then I was like in several networking calls, and people are like, Oh my gosh, you're gonna go high level. That's awesome. Because I have a question about this, like one specific thing. And I don't want to hire you because I don't need you to do the whole thing. I just can't figure out this one thing. So that was all really good feedback. Because in my brain, I'm like, Oh, it's project based, I set up their systems, they have their systems, I tell them how to use it. And like, life's all happy. But that's not actually how anything works. And people do need ongoing support, which was I think things lined up good and I was finally in the space to hear the feedback. But because of that, I offer a monthly support membership now that is super affordably priced, that has office hours where people can ask those questions and learn how to use their platform instead of having other people do it. Another thing a lot of people were asking for was just audits. they already have systems set up. And like the ones I did last week, it was in Dubsado. So it's not even in go high level, but it's all the same processes and thoughts, right? That they have sets platform set up that they're using, but they just know that they're not using it to their best ability. And they just need somebody who's brain thinks in that way to come in and like, walk them through some things that they can make changes to and updates and stuff like that. So yeah, Those were the two like really big ones that I was like, duh. This is so obvious.
Ksenia: That's so interesting that you bring that up because I've also like I'm very project based and I've definitely from the design side and especially websites, there's so much maintenance that I could do. There's like retainers and monthly and whatever. And I've dabbled in them a bit before, but there's something about like maybe the past couple of months where I'm like, OK, you need to really come up with a plan like make something happen because it's great from the business side of things because you have that like monthly recurring revenue and you're not just waiting on the project. But it's also useful for everyone else because then they don't have to like drop a chunk of money to work with you. They can just ask you questions. So I don't know if I don't know if it's something in the air, but I'm like, okay, lots of people are thinking about monthly recurring revenue and like supporting people in like lower options that are more ongoing.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, that was one of the big ones with me is because I keep having like brand new to business people that want to work with me. But obviously, like my full done for you service is not cheap. And there's a reason for that. But like, I also knew a brand new business owner can't afford to spend 1000s of dollars. But they do have time like that a lot of us who've been in business for several years and like have clients don't have. So that's kind of my hope with the whole membership is that it's an affordable option that they can learn to build out the platform themselves and use it and still be able to run their business and collect leads and like do all these things without making themselves broke.
Ksenia: Yeah, absolutely. With that, I know you mentioned a little bit throughout our conversation, your membership, and obviously this doesn't go perfectly. So yeah, tell us about your membership. I'm personally very curious, but I know it'll be useful for the people listening as well.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so it's called the herd collective systems of scale. If you follow me anywhere, you know that we're all about cows and chickens around here. So like herd was just had to be in the title. But it's $49 a month. And basically, you'll get all my 15 bazillion link videos that I've made over the last couple of years in a resource library. We also do bi-monthly office hour calls. So any question or concerns, or if you want me to look over something, just hop on Zoom with the rest of us, and I'll go through it. And I'm literally on these Zoom calls until everybody's questions are done. So some Zoom calls may be like 30 minutes, and other ones might be two hours. We'll see. I also have members only services that are 20% off. So there's a lot of options available for you there that nobody else has. So those are kind of fun. And then what we're just launching at the end of this month that I'm very excited about is monthly, like guest speaking training session. So I'm doing a mom summit next week. And one of the benefits to it is that you get a free month in my membership for all your systems. So the trainer that is coming on the 31st, she's actually doing an offer workshop for newbies. And she's going to like walk you through how to kind of narrow down your offer and figure out what people are needing and things like that. So There's so much stuff in there. Um, we also have like a whole community page that's part of your course. So it's like a Facebook page, except it's all in the same place and it's more private and fun. And yeah, that's, that's about it. And I'm sure I'm going to be adding more stuff because we're super pumped about this and the guest trainings weren't even planned, but we're,
Ksenia: a week and a half in and we already got up so I love it when it works out like that like that's kind of how this podcast has gone I'm like wow I really am booked out for that one okay thank you okay cool so other than your membership what else do you have going on like I know you obviously do the done for you and yeah just share what you're up to and I'm also curious do you have a specific industry that you work with
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, so I primarily work with coaches. I've done a handful of online entrepreneurs, but coaches really seem they're so creative, but they're not systems. And like, I'm so systems, but I am not as creative. So we just seem to like work really, really well together. So it's really fun. My other offers is I do an in depth audit. So I've done a handful of those already this year. And they're so much fun, because they take like an hour or two, and we bring down everything. And then I come up with three to five actionable items of how you can like solve something. And then you get like a little tidbit to the members videos on like walking you through how to do it. And then so you can do that or I have like a VIP intensive where I do the the task for you. And then my main offer is just completely done for you. So if you are rebranding or in secondary duct taping and want a completely new system, we build out all personal so like your entire course, your entire website, funnel, email marketing, all your workflows and automations, calendars, everything. I do all the work. You basically just review and tell me yes or no. So super easy.
Ksenia: That's awesome. That's so useful. I'm just thinking back. I can see a use case for every single point. What I really appreciate about how you set things up is there's like systems for every step. Like you don't have to wait until you're at a certain level to implement them. You can start really, really new or aspiring solopreneur. You can start with systems now and probably make your life so much easier when you decide to scale than if you were just like years in and are like, okay, now let's do it. To end things off, is there anything else that you want to share? Anything else that you think is important for people listening or just the stages you're on?
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, I love questions. If you have any questions about Go High Level or when the white label versions or just like any CRM in general, or if you want to give me crap about Kajabi, I've had a lot of those conversations too. So always feel free to reach out to me in my DMs. I'm pretty active on Instagram at Mantle & Co and I'm always willing to answer questions because I really do want to know what you guys need to know and what you don't know and things like that because then that's how I create content and create videos and all that jazz. So yeah, always ask me all your questions.
Ksenia: Yay. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. I'm really excited about our conversation. I know it's going to be useful for so many people because systems are always useful. So when you're starting out. So yeah, thank you.
Luvyna Mantle: Yeah, absolutely. It's been a blast.
Ksenia: Thank you for joining us for today's episode.
Ksenia: I'm very excited for this podcast and I'd love to hear any feedback, what you thought about it. Please let me know as I want to make this a very useful resource for you. We have some amazing interviews coming up as well as some solo episodes, so keep an eye out for those. Subscribe if you want to be notified when those come out. and have them automatically go into your podcast player of choice. All the links mentioned will be in the show notes and also on the podcast page on my site.
Ksenia: And lastly, if you'd like to be a guest on the show or have a topic you'd like me to cover, please reach out to me at podcast at Xenia.co. And that concludes our episode. I hope you enjoyed it.
Ksenia: Again, please give me feedback. I want to make this really awesome for you, and I hope you have a great day. Thanks for listening.
